Last weekends World Championships are now history, but entertaining history at that. A fantastic Saturday for the British saw them win three rainbow jerseys, while Sundays cross country was all about the Swiss.

Cross Country

The men’s race saw a hither to unknown quantity when Julain Absalon climbed of his bike but the day belonged to the Swiss trio of Christoph Sauser, Florian Vogel and Ralph Naef. Sauser led from start to finish dropping Vogel near the end to claim the rainbow jersey. Vogel and Naef traded places from the 2007 World Championships as both were on the podium then but it was Sausers day. The 3 Swiss riders were fighting for Olympic selection but despite his third place it is likely that Naef won’t make the cut as their U-23 team mate Nino Schurter was crowned World Champion as has better results. Sauser rode the new generation 2009 Specialized Epic which he helped to create. Its reported to be 700 grams lighter than the previous edition with some new gubbins in the Brain shock too.

Absalon suffered an early mechanical and then fought back to fourth before sucumbing to heat exhaustion. Surprise of the day was Liam Killeen. The British rider rode to a strong fourth place with Kesiakoff of Sweeden rounding out the top five. Of Irish interest was Niall Davis who finished a credible 62nd out of the 105 starters and Conor McConvey who had a fantastic ride to 21st out of 102 riders in the U-23 race.

Spain’s Margarita Fullana claimed her third World Championship title in some style riding away from second place Sabine Spitz of Germany and Irina Kalentieva of Russia with one and a half laps to go. Interestingly all three riders were riding Magura Durin forks. Kalentieva struggled but also suffered from a crash when she was hit on the head by a photographers long lens on a downhill. World Cup leader Marie Helene Premont of Canada was fourth with Wloszowska of Poland in fifth. The Chinese duo of Ying Liu and Jinjing Wang could only manage 17th and 31st respectively which is maybe an indication of them focusing on Beijing and highly fancied Dahle Flesjå of Norway managed 7th.

Downhill

The mens race saw a jubilant Gee Atherton take the rainbow jersey from his compatriot Steve Peat in a thriller with last years champion Sam Hill of Australia relegated to third following a crash within sight of the finish.It seems Peat is not destined to win the jersey

while Hill would have won convincingly as split times had him up by 6 seconds if he hadn’t crashed. Former World Chapions Greg Minaar and Fabian Barel were 4th and 5th respectively. Best of the Irish was Ben Reid in 29th.

The British had cause for celebration in the wemon’s race when Rachel Atherton joined her brother as World Champion. It seems training with your brothers is a good idea as Athertons time would have placed her in the top 20 of the men’s race. Last years winner Sabrina Jonnier of France was very upset to come second and her compatriot Ragot finished third.

Britain also claimed the Junior Worlds title through Josh Bryceland who stormed home in the early race.